One of the major issues I've run into while developing this setting is there are far too many stars out there. There's about 50 star-systems within 15 LY of Earth; a fine number of locations for an RPG setting. Particularly given that some are going to have full-fledge histories and some will be unremarkable and barren. For a number of gameplay reasons I want players to be able to travel a few lightyears in a day or so (i.e. interstellar commerce wouldn't be feasible if it took years). That said, if we can travel from one end of known-space to the other in a mere 10 days (30 LY / rating 3 SLIPP-drive = 10 days out-ship time) one would assume we'd have explored further in the 25 years we've had FTL technology.
So I really need a good reason to keep humanity relatively contained to the aforementioned 15 LY sphere around Earth. I decided to simply make it expensive and dangerous: SLIPP-travel requires extremely careful mapping of gravity-wells and tracking of any moving objects, even in deep-space. That work is done by scouts who expect to be well-paid for risking their lives for months at a time out in deep-space. The Trans-War also helps this explanation - as new exploration usually takes a backseat to making war on one's enemies.
On top of this, of course the 50 given system are just those with publicly available astronav data - there's plenty of story-hooks that can start with 'corporation XYZ has some unpublished nav data on a valuable new system....' Or the players themselves can venture-out to the unknown. It should add some possible story-hooks for GMs.
Hopefully this explains a bit more of WHY the slight plot-hole exists.
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